Welcome to this forum Jennifer and a good point you make. Thanks alot for that; hope you'll find this forum a good place to meet other Taipan/F16 sailors and discuss related topics.



Allow me to add to the point you made :



It has just come to my attention that Rick really wants to put out the race noticification soon and that is he is in effect waiting for us to choose which way we go. Isn't that an honour for us ! But we can't stretch it much longer or else the courtacy given will grow thin.



I have refrained from really voting up till now as I'm not a US based sailor and I didn't have a boat to sail there myself. However Rick has graciously offered me the use of his Taipan 4.9 (again a gracious offer) so I'm set and Ricks place has definate advantage for me personally.



Maybe any Ohio guys or somebody else wants to just fly in hop on and leave the worrying to somebody else. You can't get easier than that.



However with this aside there are other more compelling reasons why I opt to write this message and make a case for the venue at ricks place.



The involved parties have made a strong case for the Rick place venue in personal conversations. In effect the venue at Ricks is just short (of us!) of becoming the lightweight show case of the year as the A-cats will have their big race right after us with attendence of the greats like Goran Marstrom. This will make the Ricks place regatta an extremely atractive show regatta for all the class involved and in particular US F16's. We can look upon it as sort of a congress of lightweight boats and the exchange of idea's on them and to showcase ourself to the worls and attending designers. This venue and the contacts that go with them will most likely show our potential to them aswell as strengthen mutual contacts which can only lead to expanding the design basis of the class as well as the numbers of sailors.



In short, these considerations may well be worth the extra drive down to the keys.



Personally I'm aware of some sailors opting for the Ricks regatta that have not publically expressed this.



Also the F18HT class and F16HP class are really growing towards a complementary setup due to the differences in characteristic of both designs. Strengthening this complementary aspect can really work well for both classes

and from what I know it WILL work VERY well.



In short what I'm trying to say here is,without disclosing things that I'm not at liberty to close, that Ricks regatta really does have, multiple and longterm, compelling positive feedbacks to our class that may not be obvious now. And every single one of them is well worth the extra effort.



Personally and even more so in the in the role of chairman of this class I strongly advice opting for the Ricks place venue and go with it all the way with all the energy and enthousiasme we have.



I advice and not decide this as the final decision is yours and yours only. (Kirt and I will only decide when the vote resembles a draw)



Please take these considerations into account before putting in your final vote.



I will contact Rick again for the precise deadline before which our decision must have been made, but rest assured that it will very soon.



WIth kind regards,



Wouter